The Endgame

Newsletter #61 - A question of balance

Toronto, April 7, 2024

A question of balance

Long gone are the days when I could jump from rock to rock on the seashore without giving it a second thought.

Now fear of falling is with me. Falling is dangerous for the old. We must try to keep our balance. An octogenarian friend of mine says the best medical advice he ever received was “hang on to the bannister.”

It's not just physical balance that’s at stake. An old person must reconsider many other aspects of life. Take travel. Over the years the middle class embraced travel. We travelled for winter breaks, summer holidays, romantic interludes, cultural uplift, education. We cheerfully became familiar with international airports, foreign trains, three-star hotels (“...restless nights in one-night cheap hotels/ And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells”), dodgy plumbing, ramshackle taxis driven by madmen, incomprehensible languages, broken-down buses, river ferries, con men, border checkpoints. Red-eye flights were as nothing. As the man sang: “All my bags are packed/ I'm ready to go.../ I'm leavin' on a jet plane/ Don't know when I'll be back again...” Except we always knew when we’d be back, for we had jobs and families, and, anyway, John Denver was singing, not about the joys of travel, but the torments of love.

Now we are old the travel equation is different. We may have more time and money to spend on travel, but a desire for comfort, together with caution, are our constant companions. The reassurances of home— familiar geography, a warm bed with pristine sheets, hot showers, chicken pot pies in the freezer—have powerful gravitational force. Health considerations further discourage hitting the road. What if I trip and fall in Istanbul? Break a tooth in Bishkek? Throw geopolitical risks into the mix. Is now a good time to visit my cousin in Tel Aviv? Or attend that conference in Lviv?

I say, don’t stay home. Run the risks, provided they are not extreme. Be adventurous, although not wildly reckless. Do the cost-benefit analysis with an optimistic and adventurous eye. Walk on the wild side. Plan to die with your boots on. But buy trip cancellation insurance and a medical plan.

Wait a minute, as an old person, can you even afford to travel? Or do anything else, for that matter? The math of money is tricky for the elderly. They face three big unknowns. First, in most cases, old people (like everyone else) cannot know with certainty how much money they have today or predict future income with reliability. Current worth and future income depend on unpredictable markets and other exogeneous factors. Second, an old person does not know how long he will live. How long must the money last? Third, the needs of the elderly, as they age, vary and are unpredictable.

There are three basic balancing strategies that an old person can use to address the money problem. There’s the frugal option. Spend as little as possible today, hoard your pennies for tomorrow, so that all possible eventualities are covered. Remember, if you choose the frugal option, when you die most of your wealth may end up in the hands of ungrateful relatives or escheat to the Crown. Two is the bacchanalian strategy. Eat, drink, be merry, and hope for the best. If you pick the bacchanalian strategy, you will have a good time to begin with but may finish your days eating dogfood in a basement apartment. Three is the prudent path. Chart a balanced and boring middle course between frugality and bacchanalia. What can one say about the prudent path that is inspirational? Nothing.

As for me, for now, I'm leaving on a jet plane.